[TR] Rainier - Ingraham Direct Ski Descent 5/9/2010

[kevino]

Trip: Rainier - Ingraham Direct Ski Descent

 

Date: 5/9/2010

 

Trip Report:

All last week, Mark and I had been throwing around different ideas on what to do with some free time this weekend. Then I get a all from Mark friday afternoon, "dude lets just go to rainier and try to ski off the summit. If anything we still get lots of skiing."

 

Eventually we got up to Paradise and started skinning around 1 pm. Holy crap, warm and sunny! Beautiful weather. We got to Camp Muir around 7 pm, to find the hut next to empty! The only other party was a group from Utah.

 

We got up around sunrise and started skinning. We followed some tracks up and over Cathedral gap to the Ingraham flats. We put on our glacier gear and headed directly up the Ingraham Glacier. Around 12,700 we joined the DC route and continued our way to the summit crater. Only had two minor crevasse issues and otherwise straight forward route to the summit crater. From our high point we clicked into our skis and was back down to camp muir in ~30 minutes. The snow from the crater to the top of the cleaver was variable, some wind pack pow to hard crust to icy spots. Once on the cleaver the snow was great! We then skied Cadaver Gap on the way down, which provided a much more direct line to Camp Muir. After packing up our overnight gear we skied down to Paradise. The snow on the way down had developed a crust and was not nearly as pleasant as we had hoped. Still a great trip with some great partners. This was my first attempt on Rainier and boy what a fantastic time! Now for pictures!

 

Warm, sunny and clear!

 

God knows what are in the those packs

 

Watching the sunset on Adams...

 

Sunrise behind Little Tahoma

 

The route...straight up the middle

 

Break mid glacier

 

Nearing the top...

 

Group shot on the crater

 

Action shots from the glacier!

 

 

 

 

 

Conditions on the Cowlitz Glacier, Cadaver gap (our descent) and Cathedral Gap (our ascent)

 

 

Gear Notes:

Its all about the skis...

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

There was a special avy forecast on NWAC for the weekend (considerable pretty much everywhere at all elevations up through 7K). Did you see any evidence of recent avy activity?

[kevino]

There was some slide activity below the Kautz glacier and the Nisqually-Gibraltar Chute. Other than that nada. All the snow we encoutered was hard packed all the way to the surface or couple inches of soft snow on top of consolidated snow. There didn't appear to be layers.

 

I know the warning you speak of, but with the weather and snow conditions we had we felt we were safe.

[Ryan Canfield]

Very cool TR.

Because of this TR, I think I am going to hit this route this week hopefully with the weather being good.

Thank you for posting this.

[i_like_sun]

You guys are awesome! I've been thinking of heading for the Fuher Finger soon... Looks like crevasses are still nice and filled in/well covered? Any big cracks up near the crater?

[kevino]

Sorry for the delay. There were only two cracks near the crater. The first was completely covered, although the lead guy on the rope team managed to find a place to punch through. The second one, is in the 7th pic of the TR, very filled in and no stability issues when crossing it. That said of the mountain looked to be in great condition. There was a TR on turns all year from some people skiing below the turtle on this same date. Enjoy and good luck!